Archive for September, 2010

Cheat grass awns (Ouch!)

Cheat Grass (Bromus tectorum)

You probably know this annual grass well if you hike or walk through fields or on rough trails in our area—these sharp awns are the ones you find embedded in your socks and shoelaces.

The seed of cheat grass can cause serious, painful health problems for your pet.  With our cool, wet spring, these plants grew thick and tall this year!  Now this invasive annual grass has ripened and dried out, making the risk for “infection” higher for your pets.

Your pet can get these awns embedded in several areas of the body.  The ear canal is the most frequent location dogs have cheat grass awns as a foreign body.  The rough surface of the awn acts like barbs, moving the seed in one direction.  As you can imagine, just having an awn in the ear can be a painful and irritating experience, but the awn can also cause ear infections and even rupture the ear drum.  If you see your dog shaking his/her head or rubbing/scratching at the ears, contact us right away for an appointment to have those ears checked.

Cheat grass can also cause:

• foreign body abscesses, a common location being between the toes
• corneal abrasions from an awn caught behind the nictitating membrane (3^rd eyelid)
• vaginal infections (awn as a foreign body in vagina)
• sneezing from an awn being inhaled into the nasal passages (can progress to lungs!)
• tooth abscess
• coughing/gagging (awn caught in tonsils, soft palate, etc)
• skin infections (from awns caught in fur/mats)

You can help prevent serious issues with cheat grass:

• Have your pet avoid weedy areas when the cheat grass dries (usually by July).
• Inspect your pet after being out—check under the ear flap, between the toes, under the tail, then brush out the hair coat.
• Keep long hair trimmed (especially between the toes).  Have longer-coated dogs clipped shorter during the warm season.
• Keep your pet’s fur free of mats.
• Monitor your pet for the early signs—shaking head, rubbing or scratching at ears, licking or chewing at feet or other areas, watery or squinting eyes, acute sneezing, coughing, or gagging.  Call for an appointment if your pet has any of these symptoms.